Saturday, August 2, 2014

Zorin OS has a lot of takers in the new Linux converts from Windows. Recently, Zorin OS released it's 9th version based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with 5 years of support. For users who are familiar with Zorin, the release notes states of some incremental improvements over it's predecessors, namely:

"We are excited to announce the release of Zorin OS 9 Core and Ultimate. The main focus for Zorin OS 9 has been on stability and the refinement of Zorin OS' wide array of incredible features. Firstly, Zorin OS 9 includes a myriad of updated software and bug fixes to ensure that your computer runs better than ever. New applications such as the Firefox web browser and Rhythmbox music player have also been included in this release. EFI boot support has been added, making it easier to get Zorin OS on newer computers (64-bit only). In addition, we have introduced a new Blue desktop theme to the Zorin Theme Changer in complement to the Light and Dark themes. As Zorin OS 9 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS you can expect to receive continuous software updates until 2019."

For this review, I download the 64-bit Zorin OS 9 Core ISO (1.4 GB in size), which is the free version of Zorin. It ships with Zorin's tweaked GNOME 3.10.4 desktop, resembling Windows 7 and Linux kernel 3.13.0. Files 3.10.4 is the default file manager.

I created a live USB using Unetbootin in Windows 8.1 on a 4 GB USB drive and did a live boot followed by installation on a 20 GB partition.